


flowers on the windowsill

by therestlessbrook



Series: kastle prompts [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Language of Flowers, Romance, post season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23187910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestlessbrook/pseuds/therestlessbrook
Summary: Frank keeps leaving her flowers.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: kastle prompts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1337734
Comments: 23
Kudos: 167





	flowers on the windowsill

The day of Billy Russo’s funeral, someone sends flowers.

Not to the funeral home—but to Karen Page. She attended the funeral—which wasn’t much, just a coffin being lowered into the earth—as a reporter, not a mourner. Dinah Madani was there, but she never left her car. Probably there just to make sure that they put Russo six feet under. The only person who truly showed up was Curtis Hoyle, who nodded politely to Karen. She met him briefly when she interviewed him for an article about Lewis Wilson. They exchange a few words at the cemetery—mostly polite dancing around the real topic that neither will mention openly.

Karen returns to her apartment after the funeral, her notepad tucked into her purse. She’ll do a quick write-up about the end of Billy Russo, notorious criminal. It’ll probably run in the Bulletin; although Ellison hasn’t taken her on full time again, he’s willing to run some of her pieces.

When she walks into her apartment, she sees the flowers.

She finds them on her windowsill; it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen onto the fire escape or tumbled down to the street below. Karen opens her window and pulls them inside. It’s a small bouquet of baby’s breath and white lilies wrapped in brown paper, tied off with twine. She touches the soft petal of a lily. It probably says something about her life that there are a few people who might have left her flowers on a high windowsill ledge. Her first thought is Matt—with whom she has rekindled a friendship, even if she did reject his offer to come work for his and Foggy’s new firm. Freelancing as a journalist may be a little stressful in terms of finances, but Karen has always been self-driven. And a few different papers have been hinting about maybe offering a full time job.

But it’s only when she looks at the date does she realize who must have left the bouquet.

She hasn’t heard from Frank, not for weeks. Not since the hospital, when she felt the soft brush of his exhale against her mouth—before that young woman interrupted. She has never seen Frank look more defeated than in bed, and Karen desperately wanted to fix it, but she isn’t sure she succeeded. She walked out of his room and pulled the fire alarm, hoping it would be enough of a distraction for Frank to vanish again.

Karen is used to losing people, which is why losing Frank felt almost inevitable.

He was never hers to lose, she wants to remind herself. No matter what moments were shared between them, what confidences spilled over, Frank never took that step. He kept his distance, for his own reasons.

She takes the bouquet into her kitchen, unwrapping the paper. The flowers are beautiful—white, almost bridal. She puts them in a mason jar, because she doesn’t have a vase. With a small sigh, she reaches down to gather up the fallen leaves and crinkled brown paper, only to see something that makes her go still.

There’s something written on the inside of the paper. In a small handwriting, in pencil, are the words, _Never got to say thank you._

She wants to shake her head. To laugh and cry at the same time, because this is the most Frank thing she’s ever seen. Of course he’d leave her flowers and a cryptic message rather than just picking up the phone to actually say, ‘thank you.’

She leaves the flowers on her bedside table for a week before they dry out and she reluctantly puts them in the garbage.

* * *

The second bouquet appears a few weeks later. It is tucked into the space between her windowsill and the fire escape, and the flowers are delicate purple and white. Karen takes them inside, pulls open the paper. She feels a little like a kid with a cereal box, rummaging around to find the real prize. Sure enough, along the edge of the brown paper is a simple message.

_Kid’s safe. I’m working. Stay out of trouble._

Her throat tightens at the words. She can read everything she needs to in them—that teenage girl is out of the way, probably sent somewhere out of New York. Frank will have made sure she’s going to be fine. And he’s back to the punishing, because… well, she knows why. Karen’s seen enough of addiction. A high doesn’t have to be a drink or a line—it can be adrenaline and fear, a sense of accomplishment. Frank’s chasing the only thing that makes him feel whole, even if it will eventually get him killed.

She can’t make him stop. She can only hope that he’s okay.

* * *

Months pass before there’s any more communication. Matt and Foggy celebrate their first few months of a new business; again, they try to lure her away from journalism with the promise of a full partnership in their firm. She politely declines; freelancing is more her style. She prefers the freedom and the drive of choosing her own hours. She sells some articles to the Bulletin—Ellison’s mostly forgiven her for harboring not one, but two vigilantes. But she’s pretty sure he doesn’t want her permanently in the offices, because of what she might bring down on them. The debacle with Fisk ensured that several newspaper editors know her name and several are interested in her articles. She does investigative journalism on women’s issues for a few magazines and publishes a few pieces that way. It’s good work—important, and she she enjoys it.

And when one of her stories leads her to a murder involving a woman whose body was found near an illegal poker game, she knows she’s onto something big. The Gnucci’s haven’t given up their illegal gambling dens, but it looks like this death might unravel them. Karen digs in deep, finds out the woman worked as a professional dealer at casinos before being hired by the Gnucci’s.

And a few weeks later, another bouquet arrives on her windowsill.

This bouquet is red and gold, and the words written into the brown paper are, _Leave the Gnucci case alone._

She feels irritated at Frank’s presumption, which is why she takes out a pen and writes, _Only if you tell me why in person._ She leaves the paper folded up on her windowsill and goes to bed.

In the morning, the paper is gone—but it could have just blown away.

* * *

She should probably leave the case alone, but the stony gray January and the anniversary of Kevin’s death has Karen on edge. She goes into places she shouldn’t, chases down leads, tracks down receipts, and ends up with her car windows shattered by a brand-new baseball bat left in her driver’s seat.

Cleaning the shattered glass from her dashboard takes some time. But it doesn’t deter her.

She walks to meet a source, and that’s when someone strikes. She isn’t expecting it, because it’s three in the afternoon on a bustling sidewalk.

She’s on the street, walking to a coffee shop. Her phone is beeping and she’s rummaging about in her purse, which is why she’s looking sideways when the car rolls down its window. It’s a black car, sleek and generic. The windows are tinted black, so she barely sees the gap between doorframe and glass.

But she does she the glint of silver in sunlight as the gun barrel takes aim. She throws herself sideways, over a row of trash cans waiting to be emptied, and waits for the roar of gunfire that never comes. The shots make noise, but not the thunder she’s expecting. One bullet tears into the brick behind her and shards pierce her neck and shoulder, dampening her salmon-pink blouse with blood. Another blows a hole in the garbage can. But she’s out of their line of sight, and the assassin has only heartbeats to fire before traffic picks up again. She hears the cars move, but she cannot. She feels frozen in the dirt, dead roses digging into her palm. She’s crushed someone’s dormant flower beds.

She needs to get up and move.

She forces herself to stand, to glance about before setting off into the crowds. She hopes they’re some amount of cover, but no one seems to have even noticed the hit attempt. She thinks of how easy it would be for a sniper to see her, and at once her shoulder blades begin to itch.

She’s not a coward—but the raw, base fear of knowing that someone just tried to kill her… it makes her shake.

Karen hastily gets into the next available taxi, glancing repeatedly over her shoulder as she does so. She goes home, because there’s nowhere else, and locks the door behind her. She draws the curtains, pours herself a finger’s width of whisky into a glass, and goes into the bedroom.

The Gnucci’s tried to have her killed. She’s pretty sure of that. She has the paper trails to lead the cops to three of their poker games and one laundromat that’s selling drugs. She should give this over to Mahoney, let him handle it.

She opens up her laptop instead.

* * *

The next time a bouquet arrives on her windowsill, it isn’t wrapped in brown paper. It’s wrapped in an edition of the Bulletin, the newspaper tied off with twine. She opens it up, barely seeing the yellow roses, until she finds her article staring back at her. She looks for any message but there’s nothing. The article is message enough—he’s letting her know that he’s seen it. That he knows.

It’s out of her hands now. Mahoney has the evidence; the article is on the streets; it’s done.

* * *

The next bouquet that arrives has a dark brown stain on the very edge of the paper. These roses are red as blood—the crimson, freshly spilled blood, not the days old stain of the paper. Karen can so clearly picture Frank walking the streets of New York, his long coat covering a bulletproof vest, his fingers still a little sticky as he buys a bouquet and carries it to her windowsill.

 _Safe,_ the single-word message reads.

She knows what he’s referring to. Not himself—but her. He wants her to know that she’s safe, that the Gnucci’s won’t be coming after her.

She wonders how many he killed for her sake. She won’t even try and pretend it wasn’t for her. He probably found which hitters were gunning for her and sought them out, took care of any threats. Maybe that is his blood at the edge of the paper.

A swell of regret fills her. Part of her wishes she hadn’t started that article at all; another part is furious with him for taking the role of unseen protector without so much as consulting her; another part just wants to find him so she can pull him into a hug and never let go.

She touches the paper.

She wishes she had some other way to communicate with him. This flower thing is sweet, but it’s entirely too one-sided.

* * *

Karen buys a bouquet.

It isn’t for her—it’s for a headstone. She walks amidst the graves and the memories, along grassy stretches in her wholly inappropriate work heels, until she finds the right one. The cemetery is quiet during the dinner hour; there’s only the drone of a nearby lawnmower.

Maria. Lisa. Frank Junior. Their names are etched into stone. Karen takes a breath, wishes she had the courage to talk to them, but she’s not. She doesn’t know what she would say. _Hi, my name’s Karen. You don’t know me, but I’m in love with your husband. I’m sorry. I’ve tried to keep him safe but I’m not sure I can._

Yes, that would go over very well.

Karen places the flowers into the vase at the side of the headstone. Then she straightens. Walks out of the cemetery and back into the rest of her day. She should go to work—do some digging, visit a coffeeshop to go over her notes, but she’s still worn out by the the Gnucci case, and so she goes home instead. She takes the stairs up to her apartment, unlocks the door and steps inside. She’s going into her kitchen when she sees the shadow move across her window. It’s dark—in the hard gray February, the hour is already one of full night. It’s the fade of the streetlights she sees when the stranger moves across her windowsill.

Her spine goes rigid, fear flowing her limbs in a rush. The Gnucci’s. They must have sent someone else. She reaches int her purse to grab her gun, but there’s no time. There’s someone on her windowsill—and then she sees his face.

It’s Frank.

She finally, finally caught him in the act of leaving one of those goddamned bouquets.

His expression is stony and unreadable when she opens the window. She glances from the bouquet in his hand—white lilies—to his face. There are faded bruises and a cut through his upper lip. “Come inside,” she says, and he does.

She looks him over: he looks tired. There are shadows under his eyes and his stance is one of a man who’s surviving off of coffee and purpose. She gestures to the couch while she goes to grab her cell phone. She rattles off an order to a delivery place, getting twice as much food as she normally does. The cheerful voice on the other end of the line tells her it’ll drive in about forty-five minutes. Then Karen removes her shoes, places them by the door, and walks back to the couch.

Frank is still sitting there, bouquet between his hands like he doesn’t know what else to hold onto.

“I’d wondered if it was you dropping these off personally,” she says. “Or maybe if your friend used a drone or robot or something.”

That seems to startle a half-snort, half-laugh out of him. “Lieberman’s got the drones,” he says. “But nah. I wouldn’t ask him for help, not now that he’s…” His voice trails off, and she reads the words he won’t say. David Lieberman is back with his family. He’s happy and safe, and so Frank has erected a wall between them for fear of changing that. Because that’s what Frank does with anyone he gives a damn about.

Karen sits beside him, takes the flowers gently from his hands. “You could’ve just called.”

Frank shrugs. “Didn’t want to bother you.”

“I wanted to hear from you,” she says, her voice gaining a slight edge. “I always do.”

He looks at his empty hands. Doesn’t reply.

She opens the bouquet, pries apart the paper to find the message inside. But the brown paper is blank.

She blinks down at it.

“Don’t you usually leave a cryptic message in these?” she says.

Frank won’t meet her eyes. “If I have something to say, yeah.”

“And you didn’t have anything to say this time?”

He still won’t quite look at her. There’s a discomfort in his posture, a nervousness she’s only glimpsed a few times. She’s pushing him out of his comfort zone, and maybe she should feel bad about that, but she doesn’t.

“Just wanted to leave you flowers,” he says quietly.

She looks down at the lilies. “They’re beautiful,” she admits. “Kept putting them in mason jars so I could look at them a little longer.”

That gets a smile out of him. “Classy.”

“Well, it was better than a beer bottle, which was my second choice.”

His smile widens. She likes that she can still make him smile.

“You want to stay?” she asks. “I just ordered way too much food. And you can see the mason jar I’ve been using.”

He doesn’t answer right away. And maybe it’s because he’s tired or a little worn down—but Karen can see farther beyond his mask than is normal. She knows that exhaustion; she’s felt it herself. There’s a kind of apathy to it, a need to find something with meaning. He’s been fighting for so long that it doesn’t have the same adrenaline high—and now he’s here. Maybe because she’s the only thing more dangerous than the killing. Or maybe because he feels safe. She doesn’t know.

“It’s Chinese,” she says coaxingly.

He seems to finally make up his mind. “Well, in that case, I guess I could stick around for a few hours.”

It’s something. A mason jar full of lilies and a take-out dinner. It’s small, but it’s a step forward.

They eat together. Conversation flows easily; she asks about Amy and he tells her about the kid being down in Florida. He asks about work and she tells him about Matt and Foggy’s new venture, about how Frank’s case kick-started Foggy’s high-powered career. “Good to know he’s doing well,” Frank says. “Always felt a little bad about screwing that up for him. I know he worked hard on it.” They discuss Karen’s career and he makes a few grumbling noises about the Gnucci case, but admits that he did read it—and liked the article.

When the night is over, he leaves through her front door instead of the window.

“Next time,” she says, “just knock. And I prefer roses to lilies.”

The edges of his mouth and eyes are soft. “That so?”

“Yes.” She takes a breath, then kisses his cheek. Soft, just a peck—but it still sends a flush of heat through her belly. Then she steps back and gives him one last smile before shutting the door.

* * *

A few weeks later, Karen finds Frank outside her door. He’s got a bouquet of white roses in one hand—and a vase in the other.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she replies. She unlocks the door and steps aside to let him in.


End file.
